


i couldn't breathe if i tried

by imadetheline



Series: Breathe In, Breathe Out [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Bounty Hunters, Brother-Sister Relationships, Father-Son Relationship, FebuWhump2021, Gen, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:56:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29195682
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imadetheline/pseuds/imadetheline
Summary: febuwhump day four - impaling
Relationships: Leia Organa & Luke Skywalker, Luke Skywalker & Darth Vader
Series: Breathe In, Breathe Out [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2140389
Comments: 14
Kudos: 110
Collections: Luke and Vader Bonding, febuwhump 2021





	i couldn't breathe if i tried

**Author's Note:**

> title from hunger by of monsters and men

Luke blinks his eyes open, and for a moment, his fear spikes at the blackness that meets him, but then his vision is filtering in slowly, hazy and disjointed, a blur of grey and white. He shifts and groans at the sharp pain that rushes through him from his right arm, trying to remember what in the galaxy had happened.

Oh yes, of course, bounty hunters. Isn’t it always?

There’s movement to the side of him, a blur of white, and then there’s a gentle hand on his arm, the uninjured one. He blinks one more time, even though he doesn’t need his eyes to tell him it’s Leia. But his vision finally clears, and he looks up at her. Her eyebrows are drawn together, and her face is strained as she looks down at him. Luke groans again and pulls himself from the metal beneath him, sitting up next to Leia, though it's hard with the binders around his wrists. He glances around, scanning their surroundings. It’s clearly a cell, empty and cold, and on a ship; he can feel the rumble of engines beneath them. But that’s when he realizes that’s all he can feel; the Force is missing.

Luke flexes his hands experimentally, but nothing happens. He glances at the binders, and sure enough, a blinking light indicates they’re Force restricting. Clearly, these bounty hunters were after them specifically then.

“Yeah, we’re gonna have to get out of here the old-fashioned way,” Leia says, noticing his focus on the binders, a hand still resting on his shoulder. He leans into it, huffing out a breath, and tries to move his right arm again. The pain spikes, and he grits his teeth around a yelp. “Hey!” Leia exclaims, and then she’s reaching for his right hand, the prosthetic, and holding it tightly to prevent Luke from moving his arm. “It’s broken. I already checked,” she hisses, some of her frustration leaking into her voice.

“Well, that’s going to make this whole thing harder.” Luke glares down at the arm in question, and indeed it’s bent at a slightly wrong angle. He ignores the flip his stomach does and instead scans Leia for injuries. She huffs, annoyed, but doesn’t say anything. After he’s assured she’s relatively uninjured, except for a tear in the arm of her shirt and the scratch underneath, he speaks again, “How long was I out?”

She lets go of his hand, trusting him not to move his arm, and scans the empty room again, “I’m not sure. I only woke about 10 minutes before you. But we should assume we’re nearing whoever paid these thugs.”

Her eyes meet his again, and he sighs, shifting to examine the locking mechanism on the binders. Maybe if he just- “So Imperial bounty then?” he asks, fear already creeping into his system again at just which Imperial it’s likely to be.

“Most likely,” she growls, tone icy. “Got a plan?”

He shifts again, trying to get the fingers of his uninjured hand in a position where he can reach the panel on the binders' side and also ignore any thoughts of Darth Vader. “Maybe. If I can-” he grunts, prying at the panel with the edges of his fingers, “just… get this off-”

He almost startles when Leia’s bound hands land on top of his, pulling the panel off easily with her better angle and use of both hands. She snorts at the surprise on his face. “I’m not incapable. You could have just asked.”

He shakes his head, which causes a spike of pain behind his temples, but he’s smiling. “Right. Yes. Sorry.” Leia snorts again, and if his hands were free, he would have smacked her shoulder lightly. But they’re not. That pulls his attention back to the binders. “Okay, if I can get these off, I think I can get that door open.” He nods to the only door out, heavy durasteel and tightly shut, a blinking keypad next to it that they definitely do not have the codes for.

“Ok, and do you think you  _ can _ get them off?” she says doubtfully, looking pointedly at his broken arm.

He winces, “Normally, yes. I recognize the locking mechanism but with only one hand… I don’t know.”

To his surprise, Leia smiles, “Well, I guess that’s what I’m here for then.”

It takes him a moment to realize what she’s proposing but then it’s his turn to frown doubtfully, “I don’t kn-”

She cuts him off with a wave of her hand, fixing him with a glare, “But I do. I’m the only one here with two functioning arms.” Luke opens his mouth to interject, but she continues before he can, “And don’t start with that whole ‘I’m a mechanic’ thing. I know you’re brilliant or whatever, but the rest of us do work with technology. We’re not fully incompetent, you know.” A smile grows on her face, and it’s wickedly sharp, “Besides, it’s the only way we’re getting out of here.”

Luke looks for a moment at her decidedly amused face--entirely inappropriate for the situation, he muses--and then he groans, defeated. “Alright. I’ll direct you, but you have to be careful with some of these wires.”

Her grin doesn’t falter.

<<<>>>

Ten minutes later and Luke is tugging the binders off and glaring at Leia as he flexes his left wrist, which she had shocked with one of the binder’s loose wires. Accidentally, she had sworn. Leia just shrugs at him, grinning slightly, and gestures to the door.

Luke rolls his eyes but sucks in a breath and pulls himself to his feet to join Leia. His head spins, and he has to reach for her shoulder to steady himself. She looks at him in concern, but he just shakes his head in an ‘it’s fine’ motion. That causes an eye roll, but she doesn’t say anything.

So he reaches for the Force to unlock her binders, but nothing happens. The Force is muddled and hard to grasp. His eyes shut, and he scrunches his face in concentration. Slowly, it obeys him, but it’s still sluggish and hard to control. His headache is building.

But finally, her binders are clattering to the floor. She massages her wrists, frowning at him, “Are you all right?”

He starts to nod his head then pauses, considering, “I think they might have given me a Force suppressant on top of the binders. It’s messing with my control.” Leia’s brows crease in concern, but he’s quick to reassure her, “It’s fine. It’s already wearing off. That’s why I’m able to use the Force at all. C’mon,” and he turns to the door, raising a hand before she can say anything else.

He vaguely senses other lifeforms aboard the ship but can’t pinpoint how many. Hopefully, they can just avoid them completely and take one of the bounty hunters’ smaller ships--the ones they’d seen planetside before they’d been knocked out. Surely they’re somewhere on this ship.

For now, he focuses his attention on the door, reaching for the internal working of the keypad. There’s silence except for their breathing, as he desperately tries to keep ahold of the Force that keeps slipping from between his fingers. Leia seems to understand and rests her hand on his arm. It’s small but warm, and he feels a pulse of energy join his strength, and then the lock flashes green in the dim lighting and beeps as the door hisses open. Luke glances at Leia, curious at the power he’d felt help him. But then she flashes a grin at him, peering out the door into the corridor beyond, and he pushes the thought away and steps after her. Perhaps this will be easier than he’d thought.

And then, because he’s a Skywalker and apparently that means cursed, the ship shudders, and he feels it drop from hyperspace. With it comes a sweeping wave of cold, and he blanches, face whitening. Even with his awareness of the Force as shaky as it is, there’s no mistaking that presence, that power. They’re out of time.  _ He’s _ here.

He looks to Leia urgently, and finds all trace of amusement gone, her face set in her impassive mask. She may not be able to sense Vader, but she certainly knows this just became a lot more dangerous than a simple escape from bounty hunters.

Luke speaks and tries to keep his growing fear out of his voice, “It’s Vader.” Leia blinks in surprise, and perhaps a flash of worry, but then her mask is back in place. Force, he wishes he was that in control of his emotions. Maybe she’d make the better Jedi, though he knows she’d scoff at that thought. “We need to find their fighters or escape pods, anything to get us to the nearest planet so we can get back to base.”

She nods her agreement, and then she’s stepping out of the cell into the long, empty hallway. Luke follows after her and desperately hopes that maybe Vader’s luck is just as cursed as Luke’s usually is.

<<<>>>

As soon as the bounty hunters’ ship drops into realspace, Vader senses him. It’s impossible not to; Luke burns with the force of a sun. Even though it’s oddly… disjointed. His anger spikes; if the bounty hunters have hurt him, then they will be the ones paying for this with their lives. Dimly, he senses that the princess is there as well. But that doesn’t concern him. 

He steps out of the transport ship’s cockpit and strides quickly to the docking port. He’d dared not bring the Executor, nor any Imperial ship, not when he doesn’t want anyone knowing of Luke. But he’ll have to hurry if he intends to actually get his son and speak to him. The boy has had unnatural luck in evading him for the past four years. He will not allow it to continue.

Luke’s fear is spiking; that much is clear. He knows Vader is here. Guilt flashes through his mind for a moment at the reason Luke is so afraid. His own fist clenches, a prosthetic just like his son’s is now. His pace quickens. He just needs to explain to Luke, to tell him his plan of killing the emperor. He’s so close.

<<<>>>

Leia’s not sure exactly where the hangar or the escape pods should be on a ship like this, but something tells her they’re going the right way, so she continues. Luke is right behind her, and she wishes they could stop for a moment so she could reassure him. He’d said Vader was here, and she’d seen how pale he had become, how his shoulders had tensed, and his prosthetic hand clenched.

Leia’s not an idiot; she knows more happened on Bespin than he’s told her. But she won’t push him. He’ll tell her when he’s ready. 

So no, she can’t fault him for not telling her. She can, however, let her anger at Vader flare. How dare he hurt every person close to her?

Her own fist clenches at her side as she breathes through her nose, turning into another hallway. She’s going to get Luke off this ship and away from that monster.

But then Luke’s footsteps falter behind her. Leia turns, questioning, wary of voicing anything unnecessary in case the bounty hunters are nearby. He ignores her, cocking his head to the side like he’s listening to something.

And then his eyes are widening in unrestrained fear, and he’s lunging forward, knocking into her side. She hits the metal-plated floor hard, knocking the wind from her, but manages to keep her head away from the ground, so she’s not knocked unconscious. Her shoulder takes the brunt of the impact. But she’s nothing if not resilient, pulling herself to her feet a moment later. 

Just in time to see a weequayan pull a vibroblade, sticky with blood, from Luke’s side.

<<<>>>

The Force hadn’t warned him soon enough with only his shaky grip on it. And in the split second he’d had to do something he knew he wasn’t going to risk attempting to push either the bounty hunter or Leia away with the Force. He wasn’t sure he could count on that kind of control.

So he’d just shoved her out of the way of the blade singing a path for her lungs, with his own body.

For a moment, he thinks maybe the weequayan missed. But then there’s a blooming pain in his side, and the bounty hunter is smiling wickedly, a bloody vibroblade in his hand. He blinks, trying to understand. Whose blood is that?

Oh wait, it’s his. That’s why when he puts his hand to his side, it comes away sticky and coated in red. There’s static filling his head, and he blinks, desperately trying to feel anything other than pain. He feels himself stumble, and he throws out a hand to catch himself on the wall. His hand smacks against the metal with a wet thump, and he dimly realizes his hand is still covered in blood, his blood.

And then Leia is in his line of sight. She’s clutching his face, and she’s saying something. But she must not be speaking Basic. It’s garbled like he’s underwater. He feels cold.

Her hand slaps his cheek lightly, and he blinks. Then she’s pulling his arm from the wall and slinging it around her shoulders even though she’s smaller than him. He stumbles, but she pulls him forward, and he still can’t quite make out individual words, but he can sense the urgency in her tone. Distantly he recognizes the form of the weequayan on the ground as they walk past.

Luke tries to keep his legs moving, to take some of his weight off Leia’s shoulders. But he finds himself slumping against her more as they continue. “Sorry,” he mumbles.

Luke focuses, trying desperately to hear her response, and is surprised to find that finally, her words filter through the static in his head. “Don’t apologize. Just keep walking. We’re almost there.” 

He nods or thinks he does. The halls all look the same. His feet are dragging, and the pain in his side is pulling all his focus. His arm hurts, too, but he doesn’t quite remember why. Or maybe he does. It’s hard to think.

Cold is sinking into his veins. He wonders if it's from blood loss. He can feel the precious liquid dripping down his side, soaking into his torn tunic. But it also feels like something else, like something wrapping around him, trying to lend its strength. It helps clear his mind a little.

Just in time for them to round a corner into the hangar and come face to face with the three other bounty hunters. Kriff.

Leia shrugs off his arm as one, a woman lunges at them. Leia meets her, ducking her swing and returning with her own. Luke wavers but manages to stay upright, his hand coming to press against the wound in his abdomen, hoping to stem some of the blood flow. His gaze flickers over the other two bounty hunters. One is already moving to help the woman fighting Leia.

But that leaves the other one, a barabel, its tail flicking lazily behind it and a wicked smile creeping over its reptilian face as it sees the blood dripping from between Luke’s fingers.

Luke reaches for the Force despairingly, but it slips through his fingers like sand. The barabel is coming towards him, and Luke takes a shaky step back, his fear growing. He feels like wounded prey in front of a predator. He glances to Leia and sees her panic-stricken face looking back at him before she has to dodge one of the bounty hunter's punches again. He knows she can’t help him quick enough.

So he removes his hand from the seeping wound and tries to swing at the barabel’s head. He knows it's hopeless before he does it, but there’s nothing else he can do. The barabel catches Luke’s hand with bone-crushing strength and twists. Luke almost chokes on a sob. But before his wrist breaks, the barabel’s other arm is coming around, its grin widening. It hits him in the side, directly on top of his injury. 

Luke’s vision whites out in a crashing wave of pain, and from far away, he hears someone scream as his legs give out and he falls. Maybe it was him.

He doesn’t know anything anymore, everything’s spinning and disjointed, and he just wants it to stop hurting. His whole body feels like it’s on fire, pain radiating out from his side and his arm and his head. Luke’s not even sure he remembers how to reach for the Force to help ease the pain. Why isn’t he dead yet? Isn’t that what was about to happen?

But then the cold is there, at the back of his head, and then it’s moving, spreading down through his limbs. He heaves in a breath, gasping for air that he’s almost forgotten how to suck in.

Someone’s speaking. Does it matter who? His body is desperately saying no, pulling him towards darkness. But there’s something, someone…

His eyes shoot open: Vader.

Vader’s here. Leia, Leia’s in danger. He needs- needs to. He groans, leveraging a hand against the metal floor beneath him. His body is screaming, tugging him back down. He grinds his teeth together and heaves himself up. He wants to cry as he gasps for air, trying to breathe through the pain. And then there’s a hand on his shoulder, pressing him back down. It’s too large, too strong to be Leia. Luke fights it, and it relents, moving to his back to keep him sitting up.

His vision is flickering, but he manages a few words to the dark figure looming over him, “Don’t- don’t hurt her.”

That cold is wrapping tighter, whispering of sleep and rest. His body is disobeying him, pain and the suggestions tugging him downwards. “She will be fine, my son.  _ Rest. _ ”

And the words had been truthful, so Luke finally lets the darkness in and relaxes into the arms of his father wrapping around him.

**Author's Note:**

> If you guys liked it leave a comment. They make my day! Seriously I love reading them so please leave me one cause they motivate me to write more! if you guys have ideas for other stories send me an ask on tumblr [here](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/imadetheline) or just yell about stuff with me. Info about me and all my other tumblrs are [here](https://infoabtmaddie.carrd.co/#)


End file.
